Touch-sensitive surfaces are becoming common in computing devices. They are convenient as they allow a user to make natural gestures familiar to the user in other contexts, such as by entering handwriting using a special stylus such as an elongated pen-like object having a pointed tip. Many of these devices also allow input to be provided by user's fingertip. The term touch-sensitive surface or device will be used herein to refer to such surfaces or devices that are configured to detect the touch of one or more types of “stylus” such as a specially-design stylus device and/or a user's finger. One disadvantage of using a finger or other broad-tipped stylus with a touch-sensitive device is that it is more difficult to accurately target where the finger will and will not touch, usually because the fingertip is typically larger than the area being targeted, and because the user cannot see through the fingertip to verify accurate targeting. For instance, where the touch-sensitive device is combined with a display (thus, a touch-sensitive display), it is difficult to use a finger to target small displayed objects so that they may be selected and/or manipulated.
One method of addressing this problem is to provide a user interface (UI) element. UI elements are graphical depictions adjacent or surrounding a cursor such as a mouse pointer. By placing a finger on the area represented by the UI element and dragging, the user may manipulate the pointer in a more precise manner then is possible with a relatively blunt finger. While the UI element provides a number of advantages, it can be a challenge to determine how the UI element should be displayed so as to not interfere with other information or the interaction with other nearby targets displayed on the screen.
A further challenge with using a stylus (which, as noted above, may be a finger) is that the user may not provide a consistent pressure when attempting to provide a drag input on the touch-sensitive surface. If the individual accidentally ceases to make contact during while providing the drag input, the affect can be an input different than what was intended or desired.